Metapopulation dynamics and climate change in a model system: the silver-spotted skipper

模型系统中的种群动态和气候变化：银斑船长

• 批准号: NE/G006296/1
• 负责人: Robert Wilson
• 金额: $ 31.19万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2009 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FG006296%2F1
• 关键词: Metapopulation; dynamics; climate; change; model; Metapopulation; dynamics; climate; change; model

Habitat loss and climate change together represent a great threat to biodiversity because species face the difficult task of shifting their distributions across human-dominated landscapes in which suitable habitats are present only as scattered fragments of formerly more widespread types of vegetation. New approaches are needed to understand and predict accurately the responses of species to these environmental drivers of change when they act in combination. The complication is that climate change itself alters habitat quality and quantity, by changing the availability of suitable 'microclimates'. For example, our study species, the silver-spotted skipper butterfly, reaches the cool northern edge of its European distribution in England. As such, it used to be restricted to exceptionally hot microclimates (short grass on South-facing hillsides) in the early 1980s, but has recently colonised cooler habitats (taller grassland, and East, West, and North-facing hillsides) as the climate has warmed. Habitats that used to be too cool are now accessible to the species; although some south-facing grassland may have started to become too hot and dry for the insect. Increasing suitability of East, West, and North-facing hillsides has resulted in a major increase in the amount of grassland that is thermally acceptable, allowing the silver-spotted skipper to start to expand its distribution. However, the situation is complicated because year-to-year variation in climatic conditions constantly alters the suitability of each remaining area of calcareous grassland (depending on the slope, aspect and vegetation). The habitat available to the skipper is a shifting mosaic depending on the weather conditions each year, making it difficult to provide clear guidelines for conservation managers to allow the species to survive and extend its distribution. As the climate changes, this interaction between climate and habitat is likely to complicate the process of conservation planning and habitat management for the many rare species that are now restricted to localised areas of habitat in modern landscapes. To date, the feedback loop between climate and the landscape-scale distribution of habitat has not been incorporated in any scientific modelling framework, but this is required before believable and testable projections of species responses to climate change can be made. We will develop a new approach using a population model that incorporates variation over time in climate-driven habitat availability. These models will be developed using large-scale data on the British distribution, habitat and population sizes of the silver-spotted skipper butterfly for the period 1982 to 2001. The models will then be used to predict post-2001 changes, and we will test our projections against new information on changes in habitat and distribution for the skipper between 2002 and 2010. The project will allow us to test how accurately we can predict changes in species distributions as they respond to climate change, and the importance of climate, habitat and their interactions in explaining the rates at which species extend their distributions. This step is vital to determine whether conservation actions can alleviate the effects of climate change on biodiversity, and which actions are most efficient in this process of adapting conservation to climate change. We will make the software that we develop available to other scientists, policy-makers and conservation practitioners, allowing our approach to be applied to the conservation of the many other rare species facing the same problems as the silver-spotted skipper.

栖息地的丧失和气候变化共同对生物多样性构成了巨大威胁，因为物种面临着在人类主导的景观中转移分布的艰巨任务，在该景观中，合适的栖息地仅作为以前更广泛的植被类型的分散碎片。需要采用新的方法来准确理解和预测物种对这些环境驱动因素组合起作用的反应。并发症是气候变化本身通过改变合适的“微气候”的可用性来改变栖息地的质量和数量。例如，我们的研究物种是银斑的船长蝴蝶，到达了其在英国欧洲分布的凉爽北部边缘。因此，它过去仅限于1980年代初的异常热的微气候（朝南山坡上的短草），但由于气候变暖，最近已殖民了凉爽的栖息地（高大的草原，西部，西部，西部和朝北的山坡）。现在，该物种可以进入以前太酷的栖息地。尽管某些朝南的草原可能已经开始变得太热又干燥。东部，西部和北向山坡的适合性提高导致了可以接受的草地的大量增加，从而使银斑点船长开始扩大其分布。但是，情况很复杂，因为气候条件下的年度变化不断改变钙质草原剩余区域的适合性（取决于坡度，方面和植被）。船长可用的栖息地是根据每年的天气条件而变化的，这使得很难为保护经理提供明确的准则，以使该物种能够生存并扩展其分布。随着气候的变化，气候和栖息地之间的这种相互作用可能会使许多稀有物种的保护计划和栖息地管理过程变得复杂，这些物种现在仅限于现代风景中的栖息地局部区域。迄今为止，尚未在任何科学建模框架中纳入气候与景观规模分布之间的反馈回路，但是在可以对物种对气候变化的响应的可信和可检验的预测之前，这是必需的。我们将使用一种种群模型来开发一种新方法，该模型将随着时间的流逝纳入气候驱动的栖息地可用性中。这些模型将使用有关1982年至2001年时期的银斑船长蝴蝶的分布，栖息地和人口大小的大规模数据开发，然后这些模型将用于预测2001年以后的变化，我们将测试我们对栖息地变化的新信息的预测信息，以预测2002年至2010年之间的养生方式，我们可以在2002年和各种习惯中进行变化。我们可以在各种习惯上进行变化。种类的变化。种类的变化。种类的变化。物种的变化。物种的变化。以及他们在解释物种扩展其分布的速率方面的相互作用。此步骤对于确定保护行动是否可以减轻气候变化对生物多样性的影响以及哪些行动在适应环境变化的过程中最有效。我们将制造我们开发的软件可用于其他科学家，政策制定者和保护从业人员，从而使我们的方法适用于与银斑船长相同问题的许多其他稀有物种的保护。